


The things we hide in plain sight

by furieswake



Category: SHINee
Genre: Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Gaslighting, Heavy Angst, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and literally two sentences of JongKey because I wanted to make it better for Jjong, but with real world solutions?, extremely angsty, seriously please heed trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:01:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furieswake/pseuds/furieswake
Summary: Jonghyun is a creative writing professor, who deals with his childhood of domestic violence and child abuse as an adult.Dedicated to all the lost kids in a seemingly endless black night.This one is for you.For the one kid that needs to read the words “abuse is about the abuser and not the victim,” whether you read this today or find this five years from now, I hope you read these words and know that you did absolutely nothing to deserve this.Do not give up hope. Life can get better.





	The things we hide in plain sight

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with an uncomfortable truth that we as a society don’t often know how to discuss, that truth being that not all abuse is reported and not all victims leave their abusers.
> 
> I want to make it very clear that this is a work of fiction about a fictional character, but the events described, well… unfortunately, I did not make them up.

Jonghyun teaches a creative writing class at a small liberal arts college in the city.  
“I want to show you a photo.” He begins, holding a photo the size of a sheet of paper. It is of a small house in a city suburb. It is daytime, the sun shines onto the house, the sky is clear and bright blue. “What does this look like to you?” he asks.  
"It's a house." a student says.  
"It's a home." another student says  
“Ah, but how do you know it's a home, if you don’t know who lives there?”  
“There are toys right there.” the second student points out the scattering of toys in the grass in the foreground.  
“Very good. Houses are just places, homes carry emotion. The evidence of toys indicates that at least one child and one adult live in this house. So, yes, you are correct, this is a home. The family that lived in this house in actuality, consisted of two parents, a mom and a dad, and two children, a little boy and a little girl.

The next picture Jonghyun shows is a photo of a family beach day. The picture is old, the color and graininess dating the photo by at least two decades. Two small children wear wide brim hats. They build a sandcastle in the forefront of the photo, their faces are not visible. Two adults sit behind them on beach chairs, wearing sunglasses. They smile, caught in mid-action by an unknown photographer. The image is intimate, it’s candid.  
“Can you tell me anything about the people who live in this house from this photo? Do they care about each other? Do they love each other? Are they happy?”  
“No, it’s just a picture, but... they look happy.” someone says.  
“They do.” Jonghyun agrees, nodding his head.

“What if i show you this picture?”  
Jonghyun shows a different picture. It is of the same house, but this time at night. A police car is parked in front, the red and blue lights of the police car casting eerie shadows on the front of the house.  
Several people murmur various answers, shifting in their chairs.  
Jonghyun nods at their murmured answers, noting their reactions.  
“Yes, you would think of secrets. That this house had secrets.  
What kind of secrets do you think this house has?”

Jonghyun continues to hold the photo up. “What if I told you that inside this house, rules were wound so tightly that deviation by even one centimeter meant the little boy and little girl were beaten. Everything and I mean everything has a proper place. There is a right way to do absolutely anything and everything. There is even a right way to throw away trash.” Jonghyun lips quirk into a wry smile. He knows how ridiculous this must sound to an outsider, but if they only knew.  
“What if I told you that the Persian rug in the front entryway is where the children kneeled for hours and hours as punishment while they sobbed, their eyes red and puffy, their legs going numb and the chicken coop in the backyard…” the room goes deathly silent. “—no longer housed chickens but is used to punish disobedient children.”

“Now, I want to show you the first two photos again. After seeing the third photo, how do you perceive the photos of the house and family?  
“They're... the same.” students answer hesitantly.  
“Exactly.” Jonghyun nods. “Nothing has changed outwardly in the photos. A photo is a snapshot in time, one second that gets immortalized forever and appearances... can be misleading or downright wrong.”

Jonghyun turns away from the class to put the photos down and he slips into a memory without meaning to. He’s six and he and his sister have been punished for god-knows-what. They’ve been locked in the chicken coops outside, relics from the previous occupants. Small wood framed structures, 2 meter cubes, with chain link fencing for walls and hard plastic roof panels nailed to the tops of the wooden frames. It’s a Sunday afternoon and the air in the neighborhood is unusually quiet. Since he’s smaller than his sister, he is put in the one without a lock, the warped wooden door staying shut because it is wedged hard against the uneven earth below.

The children cry and plead, yelling through the chain link fence, but it does no good, they get left alone outside. The air is silent. Sodam sits down, turning herself away from Jonghyun, she blames him. It is his fault they fought and that’s why they got in trouble. Jonghyun feels a heaviness in his chest. He wants to do something about it… anything.

He pushes against the door, throwing his shoulder against it, again and again.  
“Stop, Jonghyun! You’re so stupid! It’s not going to work.” she says, looking at him through the chain link fence that separates them.  
Jonghyun ignores her and doesn’t stop, he keeps working at the door a long time with the weight of his small body and it eventually gives.  
He’s free!

Sodam is surprised and once outside, Jonghyun tries to reach the latch on her door, but it is just out of his reach. He keeps trying, but he can’t get it, even when he stands on his tippy-toes. He grows increasingly frustrated and then he has to make a choice... so he turns around and the look on Sodam’s face as she realizes, will stay with Jonghyun, etched on his mind as a permanent scar.

But Jonghyun is only six and he doesn’t have many choices on where to go. He and Sodam are still locked in the backyard. Parents are supposed to keep you safe, right?

“Umma, please, I'll be good! We’ll be good!” Jonghyun corrects himself. “I promise. Please let us back in, Umma!!” Jonghyun begs, pounding on the back door, tears streaming down his face.

His escape is short-lived. He is brought back to the same chicken coop, kicking and screaming a few minutes later. This time a cinder block is placed on the outside of the wedged door.

Sodam snaps at him from her spot on the ground, her face twisted into a snarl, her fingers playing with a leaf, “I knew it wouldn’t work.”  
Jonghyun sits on the ground, he feels so very alone. He wraps his arms around his knees and cries.

Jonghyun swallows as he is brought back to the present. He looks back up to the class, his voice thicker than a second before.  
“What if I told you that the last photo never happened, the police never came and the secrets of this house remain hidden forever. My assignment to you is write a story about the things we hide in plain sight.”

Jonghyun thinks back to all the times he screamed for help when he was younger, for anybody to call the Police, but not even once did the Police ever come. Not one singular time.

“If you tell anyone, Jonghyun, Umma will go to jail too. Hasn’t she hit you as well? You and Sodam will be put in foster care and you will never see each other again. Is that what you want, Jonghyun? To be all by yourself in life. Maybe, the Police will put you in jail. You’re a terrible child, Jonghyun. You have a rotten black soul. What did we ever do to deserve a demon like you as a child? If it weren’t for you, we would be happy.”  
These seeds of doubt will breed confusion and conflict in Jonghyun. So, not once after the violence has ended will he ever admit to anyone the extent of what goes on inside their house.

Most people think domestic violence and child abuse is clear-cut, that there is a definitive abuser and there are definite innocents, but that’s not true. Domestic violence taints all the people involved and the innocence of all parties is lost. Jonghyun has raised his own hands against his father; his mother, who he loves more than life has hit and abused him and Sodam; and he has lashed out at both his mother and sister in a fit of anger. No one’s hands are clean.

Would the police take him away? What about his mother? What will happen to him and Sodam?

The class breaks for a brainstorming session and Jonghyun walks around to see if anyone needs help.

“Professor, are the people in your story real?” a student asks a few minutes in, still preoccupied with Jonghyun’s story.  
"Do you wish they weren't? Would it make it easier if they weren’t real?" Jonghyun asks.  
More students go quiet to listen. Jonghyun notices and looks up to address the entire class.  
“Life is uncomfortable. People are complicated. For every story like this one, there is another story that is much worse."  
“The people in this story are real. It's autobiographical. The little boy is me and the little girl is my older sister.” Jonghyun admits.  
“Don't look so sad!” Jonghyun laughs, trying to shake off the class’ serious expressions. Even worst than the looks of disbelief can be the looks of pity.  
“It is in the past and I'm here now. No matter what pain you go through, life can get better, you can grow up and leave a broken home, you can leave a bad relationship. Victims of abuse shouldn't ever feel shame, it was never about them. Abuse is about the abuser and it is them who should feel shame. There is never anything you can change about yourself to stop someone who abuses you. You can't be more perfect, more quiet, more docile, more anything. I will repeat it again, **abuse is about the abuser and not the victim.** ”

Jonghyun pauses.  
“Did I ever tell you why I love writing? When I was younger, I loved to read. I would spend hours every day reading, escaping reality, losing myself in the pages of books. In books, you can be anything, you can have any adventure, live any life you want. And in them, I was safe, I was loved, and no harm ever came to me. So, books became my solace, my haven even. It was entirely predictable what would happen in the books I read: the monster would be slayed, the bad guy defeated, and the good guy would always win. What's not to love? But real life is not fiction and it's definitely not a fairytale.”

Jonghyun blinks and he's no longer in the classroom, it’s the middle of the night and he can feel himself jerk awake in the room he shares with Sodam from a loud noise.  
Their mother sits on the floor holding the doorknob, the night light casting a shadow on her haggard face.  
“Umma, what are you—” Jonghyun starts to ask.  
The doorknob rattles, someone tries hard to get in, but the door is locked. The person begins pounding on the door on the other side.  
“GET OUT HERE, you fucking whore or I will kill you all!”  
The pounding grows louder as the person begins kicking at the door. Jonghyun sits up, he is paralyzed, he can barely breathe. After some time, the kicking slows, eventually stopping.  
A man’s voice can be heard. “If you stay in there, I will burn this entire house down and we all can die. Is that what you want?! I will do it, I promise you!” A final kick is placed on the door, before steps are heard walking away.

After a few minutes, their mother motions for the children to come closer.  
“Jonghyun, Sodam, no matter what happens, stay inside the room, okay? Promise me.” She knows the threat is a lie, but the quickest way to end this without further escalation and risk to Jonghun and Sodam is to comply. She gets up and moves to unlock the bedroom door.  
“No, Umma!”  
“No, please!! Please don’t go outside.”  
Tiny arms wrap around her torso, their bodies moving in front of her to block the door. Their mother has a determined grim look on her face as she pushes them aside.  
“Promise me.”  
They shake their heads.  
Their mother holds Sodam by the shoulders, making her face her.  
“Sodam, PROMISE me.”  
Sodams cries, a look of abject pain on her face, but she nods.

Jonghyun does not remember his mother opening the door, but moments after she’s on the other side, a large hand appears out of nowhere, yanking his mother roughly by her hair.  
“Wow, you really are as DUMB as a cow! I would be doing the world a service if I killed you, so no one has to deal with your STUPIDITY!” the man roars.  
Their mother is pulled from sight against her own will and Jonghyun starts to bolt to his mother’s aid, but Sodam blocks him, her arm gripping the edge of the door tightly, preventing him from leaving. Jonghyun ends up hitting her.  
“He’s hurting her!!! Let me go! Sodam, please, let me go!” Jonghyun yells.  
Sodam grabs his wrist, gripping so tightly that marks appear from her nails, pushing him back inside, her face firm.  
“NO, Jonghyun!! We promised Umma.”  
Sodam manages to close the door and locks it as Jonghyun continues to fight her. Jonghyun becomes unhinged as she tries to restrain him. “I hate you, Sodam! I hate you so much!” Jonghyun cries, struggling in her arms. Even though Jonghyun hits her, Sodam’s facial expression does not change, she just is.

Sodam sits them on the floor near the door, flat against the wall. She doesn’t tell him that she thinks this is the safest place for them. If the door gives later, it might buy them enough seconds to get away. They hear shouting and things breaking a few rooms away.

The shouting eventually stops, Jonghyun is exhausted, he fights to keep his eyes open, but he ends up falling asleep in Sodam’s lap. She stays awake… in case, just in case. She wakes him up a little later when she can feel assured that nothing more will happen this night. The children lie down in their beds for a few hours before school, falling into a restless sleep.  
The next day, Jonghyun can barely keep his eyes open in school and his head hurts from crying so much the night before, but he doesn’t tell anyone why, even when his teacher scolds him.

Over the next years, this same scene will play itself out over and over again. But on the outside, Jonghyun and Sodam are model students, they have a model family. Both children have absolutely perfect attendance in school, never missing a single day, and they do well in their classes. They have plenty of friends, they laugh and they smile often. More happy family photos will get added to the living room wall of occassions, weddings, birthdays, school plays, etc. Photos of happy faces with happy smiles. It is easy during the good times to be lulled into a false sense of security, maybe people can change, maybe it’s different this time, but these periods do not last. The intervals between episodes vary, but ultimately this cycle will repeat itself.

The only difference is that Jonghyun and Sodam get bigger and they get older. They lose the protection their age and size had granted them and they become unwilling participants in the violence.

It is completely arbitrary what will set their father off, Jonghyun will open a cereal box “incorrectly,” their aunt will mention a past suitor of their mother’s, or Sodam will drag her feet while doing her chores.

Small variances to this nightmarish scene will occur, but the end result is always the same.  
There will be pain, there will be tears, and there will be screaming.

Sometimes, their mother doesn’t leave of her own accord and the lock or door eventually gives way; sometimes, Jonghyun or Sodam run outside and throw themselves in the middle, only to have their father’s wrath turned on them; sometimes, their mother will fight back and one of the children will referee, one hand at their father’s throat, while they block their mother from coming closer.

Sometimes, the abuse is directed solely on one of the children. Jonghyun is forced to stay up all night kneeling for some small indiscretion on the Persian rug in the living room; sometimes, he’s explained to by his father why his father had to hit him. It is the responsibility of parents to teach their children right from wrong, so can’t Jonghyun understand why he deserved to be hit? He was bad and his father is good.

Sometimes, Sodam is the one in trouble and Jonghyun is secretly relieved that it is not him. And sometimes, his father has coaxed Jonghyun into giving her up for some lie she’s told or some mistake she’s made.  
“Why did you tell, Jonghyun?!” Sodam cries as she looks at him.  
“I-I…” Jonghyun has no answer. The shame and confusion that sets in is the result of another power maneuvering of their father’s and the smirk on his father’s face, the true sign of evil on Earth.

Jonghyun and Sodam continue to grow up in this broken house. They are used as both punching bags and pawns, brainwashed and pitted against their only allies, manipulated and programmed into thinking that they deserve to be hit.

In the present, Jonghyun blinks his eyes a few times and shakes his head before he continues his talk. The flashbacks have been occurring more frequently and he has a harder time pulling himself back out every time. “Do you know what’s complicated about family? You don’t get to decide the family you are born into or raised in. You have no control in the matter. Your parents are supposed to be your protectors and your home a safe place, but what happens when your protector and tormentor are one and the same? What if you dread going home?"

"I was taught to never ‘air dirty laundry in public.’ How many of you have been taught the same?” Jonghyun raises his eyebrows in a silent question to the class. "Shame can paralyze you, prevent you from seeking help when you definitely should, but who am I to judge, I didn’t. The abuse I faced existed in some kind of gray area in my mind. Sure, I experienced physical violence, I’ve been strangled and held down by a grown man nearly twice my size, but I never had any marks on my body, my abuser was careful. The emotional abuse was much worse and in my case much harder to deal with.” Jonghyun gives a dry laugh, which is jarring and inappropriate to most of the class, but comedy has been a longtime coping mechanism of his, so Jonghyun ignores their expressions.

He clears his throat and continues, “Growing up is hard enough, being a teenager is so difficult, you feel everything so intensely. I know what it feels like to want to hurt someone and in a fit of rage, want to kill someone. I have felt it myself. Many times, I would stand there as my abuser screamed in my face and think there are only two ways this nightmare will end, he will kill me or I will kill him. At the time, there was nothing anyone could say to convince me of otherwise. And when the opportunity came, I found I didn’t have it in me to hurt someone who was defenseless. My heart is too soft, I could not hurt him like he had hurt me. There is a completely different level of viciousness that must exist in a person that would continue to hit someone on the ground, defenseless, who begs you to stop. And I am grateful that of all the things I’ve inherited, that viciousness is not one of them.”

Jonghyun pauses.  
“From hearing my story, you would think the natural outcome is my mother would have left my father and I would never speak to him again. But my parents are still married and I still speak to my father. Life is more complicated than anyone will ever tell you.”

Now as adults, Jonghyun and Sodam deal with their past completely differently. Jonghyun feels too much. He is still haunted at night, his insomnia a direct manifestation of when it was not safe to close his eyes at night. He imagines phantom hands that strangle him and a shadowy figure that kneels on his chest, pressing him into the ground. He tosses and turns, haunted by memories, sharp pain of what he imagines his own sins to be. How could he have better protected the people he loves? How had his past honesty or actions hurt them? He will remember the look on Sodam’s face as his six-year-old self made the choice to leave her behind. He will remember other instances that bring him shame and his body will jerk as he slips into those memories.

Is he forgiven because he was a child under extreme duress? Yes. But do those memories still haunt him when he close his eyes at night all the same? Yes.

Sodam on the complete other side of the spectrum, feels too little. She’s repressed so many memories of their childhood that Jonghyun sometimes feels he’s the only one who experienced it. Attempts to discuss anything with his sister result in the sharpest rebuke from her. He looks at her now and can only see the impenetrable fortress around her heart where she keeps those feelings and memories locked away. She has done such a good job of suppressing all the things that hurt her that she no longer remembers where she’s hidden the key.

Her refusal to discuss their shared pain makes it unbearably lonely for Jonghyun, but he doesn’t push it. He doesn’t want to make her cry anymore than she already has. He was incredibly lucky to have a sibling to share his pain with and he knows that there are children who have no one, no allies they can talk to. He was so lucky that he wasn’t alone and for that, he is thankful.

The clock chimes outside, indicating the end of the hour already.  
Jonghyun looks up in a daze, taking a deep breath. “Class is dismissed.”  
“Thank you, Professor.” Students murmur.

His lecture has affected each one of them differently. The students who had happy childhoods observe his words as if they are watching a film. They try to relate, but can’t get close enough to the subject. The students who feel empathy, they hurt for his past pain, the lost of innocence for the children he and Sodam were. Then there are the students who think he is lying. There is no way it could have been this bad and never reported, so therefore Jonghyun must be exaggerating. Jonghyun has experienced these type of people before and knows that nothing will change their minds. He doesn’t need to bare the most vulnerable parts of him, outline every occurrence in detail, in order for people to understand, he shouldn’t have to. He knows the truth and people can either believe him or not.

And then there are other students, they shut down, neutral faces plastered on their faces like masks as to not give themselves away, their minds running at 200 kilometers an hour. His words could be theirs. They too have been raised to never “air their dirty laundry in public.” Domestic violence, child abuse, addiction, infidelity, broken homes, they understand secrets very well.

“I want your stories on my desk in two weeks please.” Jonghyun says as the students start to leave the classroom.

Jonghun's pain is his past and it has been years since he’s left that broken house. He has made a sort of peace with it, but he admits, talking about it, makes the monster hiding in the closet come back out.

He finishes packing up his computer bag and leaves the classroom to meet Kibum for lunch.  
Kibum. Kibum is the essence of light and he does not judge. He holds him when he cries at night, reliving old pain, and stays up with him when he can't sleep at night.  
“Abuse is about the abuser and not the victim,” he continues to repeat, taking deep breaths as he walks outside into the sunshine.

 

* * *

Jonghyun is unaware, but in a few days, he will have a debilitating panic attack. He will end up in his doctor’s office at 26 years old, hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably.

In between sobs, the doctor can only make out the words, “She... t-told me... to be q-quiet.” Jonghyun will remember his mother hushing him after a particularly bad beating and this memory will push him over the edge he has tightroped his entire life. More traumatic incidents will come rushing out of his mouth to his doctor as he continues to gasp and sob, like a dam that bursts after being under immense strain for a very long time.

Jonghyun will be diagnosed with PTSD and a generalized anxiety disorder. He cannot recall his childhood trauma without physically reliving it. He will be prescribed a host of medications to help him with his anxiety, depression, and insomnia. He will be referred to a therapist, so he can finally get help dealing with the traumas of his childhood and it does.

It helps a lot.

**Author's Note:**

> And now, I will tell you a secret of my own... where does Jonghyun end and where do I begin?
> 
> So many times, in the darkest of nights, I would cry myself to sleep, feel such utter despair, and truly thought that I would not live to adulthood... but I did and you can too. In a different, better world, this wouldn’t be happening to you at all, but we cannot control what family we are born into or raised in. But your abuse doesn’t have to define you, you can heal after being broken.
> 
> This story turned out to be way more grim and angstier than I had anticipated, but I hope to convey to a message of hope regardless. Life can get better and so can you.
> 
> And for every child who feels so alone, I see you and you are not alone.


End file.
